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Summary Of Death Dissection And The Destitute By Ruth Richardson

1939 Words8 Pages

In the book Death, Dissection and the Destitute, Ruth Richardson divides her knowledge on death, dying and dissection into three main sections: The Body, The Act, and The Aftermath. The main thread throughout the book has been upon the Anatomy Act of 1832 and the way dissection, surgery and anatomy has transformed through history.
The Body
In chapter one called The Corpse and Popular Culture, Richardson explains the importance of the funeral and folklore beliefs surrounding the culture of death. Oral traditions were the backbone of folklore, having passed down from generations the death customs. Richardson explains of a present day researcher of death customs having recorded death beliefs, omens and customs surviving from the nineteenth and …show more content…

The Renaissance also brought anatomical accuracy with artistic realism. In 1543, Versailius published De Humani Corporis Fabrica, which replaced inaccurate medieval descriptions with carefully drawn observations from real dissections of the body. Dissection of human bodies occurred when the Act of 1752 was passed allowing murderers who were sentenced to death to be passed to surgeons for dissection. Before this act, surgeons were only allowed six bodies a year for dissection. Dissection as a punishment was seen as a further terror and mark of infamy stating in the act that in no case whatsoever can a body of a murderer be …show more content…

Warburton eventually added a clause to his second Bill, which would repeal the enactment under which murderers were dissected. The Bill was then regarded as a ‘gross violation of the feelings of our brethren’ and one which encouraged ‘a heartless system of infidelity, which would have us reject the blessed hope of immortality, and place ourselves on a level with the beasts that perish’. Richardson explains that those who opposed Warburton’s Bills suggested three aspects to fixing the problem on dissection laws including: economy of resources, modes of tackling public feeling against dissection, and definitions of pauperism and

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